


Paths In The Wood

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Compliant, City Elf Culture and Customs, Class Differences, Complicated Relationships, Dalish Lore, Elves, Followers of Fen'Harel (Dragon Age), Friendship, Gen, Loyalty, POV Original Female Character, POV Outsider, Servants, Slice of Life, Solas is Fen'Harel (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-11-26 10:31:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20928770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: The world is ripped in half; demons surge across the lands; great nations stand poised at the very brink of war, even threatened by the horror of some darkspawn magister from the depths of a Makerforsaken prison.There are still sheets to change, clothes to launder, corridors to sweep. Life for a servant at Skyhold is as life for a servant anywhere.





	1. Chapter 1

“Mother Giselle?” asked Ghianna, and Shani lingered behind her, not quite behind her shoulder. She huddled in her cloak, shivering from the freezing snow falling all around them, and Giselle turned her head.

“Hello,” she said softly, looking between the two of them, having to crane around Ghianna to get a look at Shani herself, and Shani lowered her gaze, not meeting her gaze. She had a kind face, Shani thought, but Chantry sisters could be… “Are you just arrived here in Haven?”

“The Quartermaster, Threnn, she told us to come to you,” said Ghianna. “My name is Ghianna, and this is my friend, Shani. We… We’ve come all the way from Gwaren.”

“_Gwaren_?” Mother Giselle repeated, and she put out her hand, gently laying her hand on Ghianna’s shoulder. “You must be so tired.”

“We want to work,” Ghianna said. “They said— You have a lot of refugees here. You must need help, handing out food, and… and we want to work. We’re not like the…” She hesitated. Shani could hear the hesitation, hear that she didn’t know how to say it the polite way, the way that humans liked to hear it.

“We aren’t refugees,” Shani said quietly, not meeting the Chantry mother’s gaze. “We’re not sick, we’re not weak. We want to earn our place here: we want to help.” Mother Giselle was looking directly at Shani’s face, Shani could feel it, but she didn’t look up at her, keeping slightly behind Ghianna.

“Alright,” Giselle said, smiling. It was a sweet smile, Shani expected – every Chantry sister had a sweet smile. It was the teeth behind it you had to look out for. “That is very good of you. The Maker smiles on those who give themselves to charitable work.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Ghianna said.

Shani said nothing at all.

\--

Shani heard, in bits and pieces, all that had happened at the Conclave. That the monster Corypheus had risen up, and that the Herald had been rescued by Andraste herself from the Rift that had opened, and that the people in Haven were working to close the Rift. The Herald, they said, was an elf.

Dalish.

Shani didn’t know if that was true or not.

“Take this to the building next to the apothecary,” said Mother Giselle, picking up a tray of bowls and setting it into Shani’s hands. It was snowing slightly outside, and Shani was glad of the warmth of the tray, with just one plate set on it, and a mug of steaming tea. “There is a man there: his name is Solas. He is one of the Herald’s advisors.”

The Herald of Andraste was… elsewhere. He had gone with the Seeker, Cassandra Pentaghast, and Varric Tethras, the famous author, beside him. Shani didn’t know where they had gone, only that they rode out, sometimes, and brought back new people or new supplies. Haven was growing by the day, with more refugees, more pilgrims – they always needed more supplies.

“Yes, Mother Giselle,” Shani said, keeping her gaze on the tray, and she stepped out from the Chantry, making her way down the stairs. It was far colder, so far west and at the base of the Frostback Mountains, than it had been in Gwaren. It didn’t bother her when she was working, or when she had things to do – it was when she laid down to sleep that it was hard, and she tossed and turned under her blanket.

She liked the work. She liked that it kept her occupied, putting food and hot tea out to the refugees, washing plates, washing clothes… They’d followed the pilgrims as they’d travelled, and then it had been the pilgrims and the refugees together.

She balanced the tray on her arm as she put up her hand to knock on the door to the cabin.

“Come in,” came a quiet voice from inside, and Shani drew it open, stepping over the threshold, and immediately sighed in relief. It was beautifully warm inside the room, and she saw the several made beds, each with threadbare pillows and blankets on their mattresses, and a desk at the end of the room.

There was a man sitting at the desk. He was bald, the back of his head shining slightly from the candlelight, and Shani looked around for the fire that was making the room so warm, but she couldn’t see it.

“My apologies,” the man said politely, making some notes on a piece of parchment. “I’ll be with you in just a moment.”

“I can just set it down, if you want, ser,” Shani murmured, but he was already standing to his feet. She saw his ears properly as he stood up, and her lips parted as he turned to look at her. He wore a lamb’s wool jerkin and leggings, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his face, the colour of his eyes, the set of his mouth, his jaw. He talked too nicely, to be an elf, surely?

“Thank you,” Solas said softly, delicately taking the tray from her, and he turned and set it aside. “What’s your name?”

“Shani,” she said quietly. “Are you Solas?”

“Yes.”

“Mother Giselle didn’t say you were an elf.”

“Oh,” Solas said, and he smiled, just slightly. “That bothers you?”

“No,” Shani said, shaking her head. “Just that most of the elves here are… are sick, or refugees, or they’re… They don’t look like you. She said you were one of the Herald’s advisors, and I didn’t think…”

“The Herald is an elf, of course,” Solas said softly. “His name is Mahanon Lavellan. He comes from a Dalish clan here in Ferelden.”

“I heard that,” Shani said. “I wasn’t sure if it was true.”

Solas watched her for a long, long moment, his lips pressed loosely together.

“I’m sorry,” Shani said. “That was the wrong thing to say.”

“You needn’t be sorry,” Solas murmured. “Thank you, again, Shani.”

Shani nodded.

She felt embarrassed, for some reason, and she made her way very quickly from the little shack, even though the cold outside bit at her skin.

\--

There were other elves in Haven. Many of them had come from other alienages, from as far off as Denerim and Highever, and even towns in Orlais. Some were from villages, and a few of them were even from Dalish clans, with the Dalish blood writing on their faces.

None of them were like Solas.

More people came to Haven. Ghianna was interested in them, in all their different manners and the ways that they held themselves, and so was Shani, but she felt… uncertain, in Haven. She didn’t mean to be frightened, exactly, but so many of them were shemlen with loud manners or heavy armour or magic crackling on their hands.

She kept thinking about leaving Gwaren.

“Excuse me, miss,” said a human, a great, hulking man with a thick black beard on his face, wearing heavy armour. When she flinched away from him, he took a step back, spreading out his hands, and she looked at the wet dirt under their feet instead of at his face. “Sorry. Sorry, I won’t hurt you.”

“I know,” Shani said, staring at his boots. “What do you need?”

“My name is Blackwall, I’m a Grey Warden,” he said. “D’you know where Varric Tethras makes his camp?”

“Yes, ser,” Shani said. “I’ll show you to him.”

She led the way to where Master Tethras made his tent, and he looked up at her when he saw her, smiling. He always smiled at her. It was a gentle, kindly smile, not the sort of thing she was used to seeing on dwarven faces – so many of them were so grumpy and gruff all the time, so angry. Not him.

“Hello, Shani,” Master Tethras said kindly.

“Hello,” echoed Solas, who was seated beside the dwarf’s fire, standing to his feet. “Grey Warden Blackwall, I take it?”

“Aye,” Blackwall said, and he put out his hand to shake Solas’. His hand looked huge compared to Solas’, even though Solas was quite tall and broad, for an elf, Shani thought.

“My name is Solas. We will ride out tomorrow, the three of us with the Herald. I’ll leave you to speak with Master Tethras.”

Solas walked alongside her as Shani stepped away.

Shani heard Blackwall say, “She wouldn’t look at my face. Is she that frightened of men?”

“Nah,” Tethras replied. “She’s scared of humans. Can’t fault her for that, can you?”

Solas was still walking beside her.

“I don’t need an escort,” Shani said. It was a very rude thing to have said, she thought, and she waited for Solas to tell her so.

“Very well,” Solas said. He walked alongside her, up to the Chantry steps, and Shani stopped. So did Solas. “You needn’t be frightened of Grey Warden Blackwall. The Herald says he’s a very gentle man.”

“Yes, ser,” Shani said.

“There is… a warrior,” said Solas. “He’s Qunari. Bigger than Blackwall is, with large horns, and only one eye.”

“I’ve seen Qunari before,” Shani said.

“You needn’t be frightened of him, either,” Solas said.

“Yes, ser.”

“Are you frightened of me?”

“No.”

“You know me to be an apostate. That doesn’t frighten you?”

“I don’t know,” Shani said. “Why does it matter?”

“Perhaps it doesn’t,” Solas said, and stepped away.

\--

Haven was burning behind them.

Shani stumbled as she tried to follow after the crowd making their way farther up the mountain, but her boot wasn’t on properly and every time she tried to stop to tie it it seemed like everyone was going to rush past her, and she couldn’t, she couldn’t—

The stone went loose under her foot, and she cried out as the snow and stone gave way beneath her, threatening to tip her down the mountain side, but hands encircled her waist and pulled her abruptly back.

Solas was warm, and Shani brought in hard, sharp breaths, clutching at his clothes.

“Tie your laces,” Solas said, standing beside her as she knelt to do so, trying to ignore the hot tears that were burning on her cheeks, trying not to breathe in too hard because the cold _stung_. “It’s alright.”

“So many people died.”

“Not you,” Solas said. “Not me. Not any of the people climbing this mountain. Give me your hand.”

Shani obeyed, and let him lead her in amidst the line of people, so that she couldn’t get lost at the edge again.

\--

“Are you alright?” Ghianna asked one morning, a few weeks after they had arrived at Skyhold. Ambassador Montilyet had hired them as servants, and they had a small bedroom together in the servants’ quarters, with warm straw beds, chests, and a vanity table, and even their own shelf for books. “I thought you might… I thought you’d feel better. Since we left Gwaren.”

“I feel better,” Shani said.

“You’re not back to your old self yet, though,” Ghianna said. “You’re so quiet, Shani. You never used to be this quiet.”

Shani considered it, for a long moment. “I haven’t been trying to go back to how I was.”

“Do you want to?”

“… I’ll try,” Shani said.

\--

“Master Solas,” said Shani as she lingered in the doorway to Solas’ office, which sat at the base of the rookery. It was a nice tower, she thought – sometimes, very early in the morning, she dusted in the library and admired all the books, their shining leather covers, the way they were settled in their places. There were so many of them, and the library itself had a beautiful smell of parchment.

Solas glanced up from the book in his lap.

“Please,” he said seriously. “Don’t call me that.”

Shani kept her chin up as she looked at him, her hands folded before her belly. “What should I call you?”

“Solas,” he said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “It is my name, is it not?”

“I’m a servant,” Shani said. “I shouldn’t call you by your name.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Solas said, and Shani felt herself smile. He smiled back, seeming surprised, and he leaned forward, setting his book aside. “Can I help you?”

“I wanted to thank you for catching me on the walk up the mountain,” Shani said. “It was rude of me not to have come sooner.”

“No,” Solas said. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

Shani nodded, taking a step back, and then she hesitated. Fear made her tongue slow and unsteady in her mouth, but Solas was nothing to be frightened of. She knew that, didn’t she? He was kind, and quiet, and polite, all of the other servants said so – he hadn’t given anybody any trouble, not at all, and he always asked people’s names, but never to complain about them, only to greet them in the hallways.

“Where are you from?” Shani asked. “You don’t speak like you’re from an alienage, but you don’t have the writing the Dalish have on their faces.”

“Vallaslin,” Solas said. “They call it vallaslin – blood writing, in the elven tongue. No, I’m not Dalish. I’ve wandered virtually all my life – such is the way of an apostate, avoiding the clutches of the Circle.”

“But you talk like a noble,” Shani said.

Solas raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“How so?”

“Polite. Genteel. Like everything can take as long as it likes, because you know when you’re moving, and no one else gets to make you change your mind unless you let them.”

“Is that how nobles are? Many of them are impatient, angry when things aren’t going their way.”

“Aren’t you like that?”

“Do _you_ think I am?”

“And nobles do this, too,” Shani said. “Play a conversation like it’s chess, to see what they can tease out of you before they win.”

“The nobles don’t always win,” Solas murmured, keeping her gaze and smiling like he was telling her a secret. “I promise.”

Shani felt a little of the tension bleed out of her shoulders – tension that felt like it had been there since she and Ghianni had run out of the city gates in Gwaren, their feet pounding on the rain-sodden earth, hand-in-hand, to catch up with the merchants’ cart before it got too far up the road. She relaxed, however marginally, and the smile on her face felt a little looser, a little easier to carry.

He was like her. Not from the alienage, maybe, but he knew what people could be like, and he didn’t mind admitting it. There was something in that.

“There,” Solas murmured. “I’ve been waiting for you to realize I won’t hurt you.”

“I haven’t decided that you won’t,” Shani said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Solas said. “I have.”

Shani laughed. She didn’t expect to, and it caught her by pleasant surprise.

“How are you finding Skyhold?” Solas asked, standing to his feet, and when he began to walk, Shani moved to fall into step beside him, letting him lead her out of the exit to his office and down the stairs, into the yard of the main fortress.

“I’ve never seen elves so well-treated,” Shani said. “But the servants are a mix of humans and elves, and even some dwarves, and the Inquisition pays us good wages. The work isn’t too hard.”

“Good,” Solas said. He walked with his hands behind his back and his chin high, but his eyes never stopped moving, as though he were expecting some threat to come rushing at them across the yard.

“Is the Inquisitor Andrastian?” Shani asked.

Solas’ lips twitched. “No, he’s Dalish,” he said, though there was a sort of hard look in his eyes. “He believes in his Dalish gods. He would be glad someone is calling him the Inquisitor, though, if not by his name. He hates being called the Herald.”

“I heard his speech,” Shani said. “It was very good.”

“He speaks well under pressure.”

“Have you known him very long?”

“A few months. Since the Conclave.”

“You’re his friend.”

“Yes.”

“His friends are…” Shani began, and then stopped herself. “I shouldn’t speak like this to you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re important.”

“Me? Important?” Solas repeated, seeming amused, his tone wry. “When have elves ever been important? Please, Shani. Tell me what you make of Inquisitor Lavellan’s friends.”

“They’re… _eclectic_, that’s all.”

Solas laughed. She didn’t think she had ever seen him laugh before – he rarely smiled for more than a few moments at a time as he moved around Skyhold, but it seemed to come from very low in his throat. It was a pleasant sound.

“Yes,” Solas agreed. “Eclectic is the word. Are we giving the servants too much trouble?”

“I definitely shouldn’t tell you that,” Shani said, and Solas chuckled.

“Shani!” said the Iron Bull as he crossed the yard, and he came to a stop. Shani looked up at his face, at the way he was surveying her, carefully. He looked at everybody like this, although he was less obvious with most people – with Shani, he was always very plain about it, because, she supposed, he knew that _she_ knew he was doing it anyway. “You’re different. Feeling good?”

“Yes, ser,” Shani said. “So is Ghianna, ser.”

The Iron Bull didn’t even look sheepish: he just grinned wider, and put his hands on his hips. “Yeah,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “I bet.”

“_Must_ you?” Solas asked, sounding more tired than disgusted.

“What’re you feeding this guy to get him to laugh?” the Bull asked, brushing his knuckles against Solas’ shoulder, but it wasn’t a real punch, like he aimed at his Chargers, or at Blackwall. “Is it a good poison? Can I get some?”

“Maybe I’m just funnier than you are, ser,” Shani said. It was a step too far, and she felt her breath catch in her throat, panic rising, but the Iron Bull laughed.

“_Shit_, I like the new Shani,” the Iron Bull said. “She’s _mean_. Keep it up.” He turned away from her, his demeanour becoming the slightest bit more serious. “Solas, that kid has been following me around all day.”

“He likes you,” Solas said. “He’ll do you no harm.”

“He keeps _disappearing!”_

“Then how do you know he’s following you?”

“Gah,” the Bull said, waving a hand, and he stepped past them, making his way toward the Herald’s Rest.

“He’s very kind,” Shani said, “for a Qunari spy.”

“How do you know he’s a Qunari spy?”

“He told me so.”

“Perhaps he was lying.”

“It’s a smokescreen,” Shani said. “I don’t think it matters whether he’s lying or telling the truth, when it’s a deflection either way.”

“Very wise,” Solas murmured. “Where is it you’re from?”

“You know where I’m from,” Shani said. “Or you wouldn’t ask.”

“You’re from Gwaren, on the coast.”

“Yes.”

“You fled the alienage.”

“Yes.”

“Something to do with a nobleman’s birthday.”

“Yes.”

Solas nodded.

“You’ve run out of questions already?”

“Answers don’t appear to be forthcoming,” Solas said.

“You’re a very strange man.”

“So I am informed.”

“Where are we going?”

“Nowhere,” Solas said, shrugging his shoulders. “I just wanted to walk. I didn’t expect you to walk alongside me for this long.”

“You’re a liar, ser,” Shani said. “You wanted to test how long it would take for me to ask. Why?”

Solas smiled. There was something dangerous in his eyes – not aimed at her, she didn’t think, but dangerous in the way that wolves or bears were dangerous, dangerous in a general sense, if not to her specifically. It was the dangerous that power was, or nature.

There was inevitability in it.

\--

“You seem better,” Ghianna murmured that night, from her bed.

Shani laid in the next bed, under her blankets, although it wasn’t cold like it used to be in Haven. It was wonderfully warm and cosy, more so than it had ever been in the alienage back home, and she felt… _comfortable_. There was a safety, down here in the servants’ quarters, a security that she’d never experienced before.

“I feel better,” Shani replied.

“Serabelle said you were speaking with Master Solas,” Ghianna said. “Is he as kind as he seems?”

“Yes,” Shani said. “He’s nice to talk to. He reminds me of Hahren Renat.”

“Oh.” The silence spanned between them for a moment in the dark, before Ghianna said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Shani said. “It doesn’t make me sad.”

“Renat could be a right cock at times,” Ghianna said, uncertainly, as though asking the question forced her to dangle over some uncertain precipice. “Can Master Solas?”

Shani laughed. Tears pinpricked at her eyes, but it didn’t feel like grief, this time – it was a lighter feeling, somehow, a relief.

“Yes,” Shani said. “Yes, I think so.”

“Good,” Ghianna said, her voice becoming a sleepy mumble. “No one can be perfect.”

“Except the Iron Bull, of course,” Shani replied.

A pillow thumped against her head, and Shani muffled her giggles with it so that they wouldn’t wake the rest of the servants.


	2. Chapter 2

“Madame de Fer is on the warpath,” warned Renella at breakfast that morning, before the sun had yet risen. It was due to be a clear day, the air cool but not bitingly cold, and they were eating by candlelight in the servants’ dining hall, so that they could clean and dust the corridors before they began making beds and cleaning rooms after about nine o’clock. “Said one of her sheets was stained when they were changed the night before last, so just mind her when you change hers today, Shani.”

Renella was a tall woman, Rivaini, in her fifties, and she wore a bright red bandana in her hair to keep it pinned away from her face. She had so many piercings in her ears, and so many bangles around her wrists, that they jangled when she walked, but she was the head of the housekeepers, and she was more than fair.

“Maker’s sake,” muttered one of the younger girls – she was new starting, Shani knew, and she worked down in the laundry under Mrs Farathen, the head laundress. “We do those sheets as best we can, especially given that so many of them come back with the _worst_ of stains. I wish them nobles would just spill their seed on their sheets instead of their wine.”

Shani laughed.

“You should tell that one to Master Tethras,” said Ghianna, grinning. “He’d like it, Eri.”

“I couldn’t talk to him!” hissed Eri, and Shani ate the last piece of her apple, setting the core aside. “He wrote— He writes _everything!”_

“You’re right about the sheets,” Shani said. “I don’t think I’ve taken the sheets of Altus Pavus’ bed _without_ seeing stains from his drink on them, and that Tevinter wine he has is all but purple. If he doesn’t sleep in his own bed—”

“Which he mostly doesn’t,” muttered Renella. “Not until the sun is nearly risen.”

“—then he leaves stains in another man’s bed. Not to mention the damage he does to rugs and curtains. It’s a relief when he fucks one of the men in the tavern instead, or down in the barracks,” Shani muttered. “Speaking of, is Ser Cullen still on about his bedsheets?”

“He says he _likes_ changing them himself,” said Ghianna, shaking her head. “So, yeah, just bring the cloth bag into his office, and he should have the bed already stripped himself. You just need to dust in his room, tidy a bit, take his clothes for the laundry if he has any to go.”

“And Master Solas?” Shani asked, looking to Renella. “Has he slept in his bed this week?”

Renella shrugged her shoulders, her bracelets letting out a musical chime. “Who can say? Change the man’s sheets. See if he notices.”

“He’s the bald man,” Eri said. “Isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Ghianna said. “He’s nice. He won’t touch you or leer at you, like some of the men do, and he’s a little bit up himself, but he respects us on the staff. Why, did he say something to you?”

“He said I had hair like a lady in this really old Dalish story, and he told it to me. It was nice. Reminded me of our hahren, when I was a little girl.”

Shani smiled at the look on Eri’s face, fond, warm.

“He’s a good man,” Renella said. “Especially for a mage. I thought all apostates were a bit unhinged, like that Pavus is, but Master Solas, he’s quiet, he’s polite, he learns everybody’s name. Wish there were more important people like him.”

“Elves, you mean?” Shani asked, and Renella laughed.

“Yeah,” she murmured, but there was a kind of glazed look in her eyes. “Sad, isn’t it? Come on, girls, off we go.”

\--

“I really don’t see what’s so difficult about it, dear girl,” said Madame de Fer from the doorway, and Shani didn’t turn to look at her as she set the sheet on the bed for the third time, pulling the corners in tightly in a soldier’s tuck, just like Mrs Rattigan, the housekeeper at Lady Dennehy’s home, had taught her when she was seven or eight. It brought the corner tight under the mattress, kept it in so that it didn’t shift under the body, and it was perfectly straight: it had been perfectly straight the first two times, too, but Madame de Fer hadn’t been satisfied, initially.

She was making her point, Shani supposed, as she laid the blankets on top, folding them back.

“_Thank _you,” the lady said sharply, as if her tone could coat them in venom.

Shani nodded her head.

“You’re one of the ones that doesn’t speak, I suppose?” she asked, and Shani knew without looking at her face that she was arching one of her eyebrows. She had very fancy shoes – all the Orlesians did, but she knew that Madame de Fer talked a lot about fashion, and clothes, and shoes. They didn’t look very comfortable or very sensible to Shani, but she supposed it wasn’t fashionable to be either. “You may dust, then, I suppose.”

Shani set about the rest of her work.

She was aware of Madame de Fer watching her from the corner of her eye, even as she sat at her writing desk. She thought that servants stole things, or maybe it was just elvish servants – Shani had never thought to ask any of the humans if Madame de Fer watched them as closely.

“You’re very diligent. A good few of your coworkers are slovenly at best,” said Madame de Fer, when Shani finished polishing the surface of her coffee table, and before Shani could move past, Madame de Fer got to her feet. “I appreciate that.” She was a tall woman, imposing, and Shani bit back the gasp, stopped herself from stepping bodily away, but couldn’t prevent the instinct to lean slightly away from her, her gaze rooted to the floor.

Her fingers were beautifully manicured, the nails painted a creamy white that contrasted the rich colour of her skin and complemented the colours of her dress: they were firm as they grasped hold of Shani’s hand and pressed a coin to her palm.

“Thank you, Madame de Fer,” Shani said quietly.

“Oh, so it _does_ speak,” she murmured, chuckling. She thought it was funny, perhaps. Shani didn’t like to be called an _it_. “Thank _you_, dear. Off you go.”

Shani moved past her.

“Hey, Shani,” asked Eri, catching her wrist as she descended the stair: she was biting her lip. “Where are the spare cloth bags for the laundry?”

“I’ll show you the cupboard,” Shani said. “Here, take this.”

“It’s an Orlesian crown,” Eri said, starry-eyed as she stroked her thumb over the carving of Empress Celene on the coin’s side. She was only seventeen – she’d never had her own money before coming to Skyhold, and she set a lot of it aside for her brothers. She was all they had left, now. “You can’t give me this!”

“Keep it,” Shani said. “You’re just starting here at Skyhold. You need savings.”

“Thank you,” Eri said, throwing her arms around Shani’s body, and Shani patted her shoulder before showing her down the corridor.

\--

It was after nine when Shani stepped into the kitchens, rubbing at her eyes. The cook, Nana, reached for her when she saw her, and pulled her into a hug. She often did that, when one of the other girls looked tired, and Shani smiled slightly as she was pulled against the old woman’s breast, squeezed tightly.

“A lot of you girls’ve left your mothers behind,” Nana had said to Ghianna and Shani when they’d first met her at Haven, bent over the cooking pot on the fire, stretching small rations to feed hundreds like it was easy. “But you’ve still got your Nana here.”

“You sit yourself down,” Nana said, patting her back. “You tell Nana all about it.”

“I’m just tired, Nana,” Shani murmured. “That’s all.”

“Early start tomorrow?”

“My day off.”

“Good,” Nana said stoutly. She approved of days off, which was funny, as Shani didn’t believe she’d ever known her to take one. “You sit down here at the table, let me make you some tea. You chat here with Mahannon.”

He wasn’t one of the servants, to be sure. He was in his thirties, sitting at the table with his hands closed tightly around a steaming mug, his eyes half-lidded. His clothes were very simple, just a green tunic and trousers, and she could see the vallaslin on his face. It was a design like a tree, spanning all over his forehead and on the tops of his cheeks, and it was beautiful, in its own way.

She’d seen the Dalish that were passing through Skyhold – the Inquisitor had invited them to stay within the walls of Skyhold before they moved on, and she heard that he’d been singing in the Herald’s Rest with them and everything, holding their children, laughing with them, speaking with them in elvish.

It was the sort of fairy tale that Hahren Renat would have told the children in the alienage, when she was a girl – too good to believe, that elves, even Dalish ones, could…

“Do you mind if I sit?” Shani asked, and Mahannon opened his eyes, looking at her. He had nice eyes, a deep brown, like tree back.

“Not at all,” he murmured. “Please.” He gestured to the chair beside him, and Shani sank to join him, watching Nana potter about the stove. “You’re a servant here?”

“Yes,” Shani said.

“Are you well-treated?”

Shani nodded his head. “I suppose you wouldn’t think so, regardless,” she murmured. “The way that the Dalish live is very different. But here at Skyhold, almost no one is rude or unkind, even when the nobles get demanded, and no one is beaten or has their pay withheld unfairly, you know. I’ve never been treated so well.”

“Good,” Mahanon said, nodding his head.

“Your— Your vallaslin?” Shani asked, and when Mahanon nodded again, she said, “There are different designs. I don’t know what they mean.”

“They pay tribute to different gods,” Mahanon said softly. “This one represents the goddess Mythal – her domain is motherhood, or love, or justice.”

“It’s beautiful,” Shani said.

Mahanon smiled. It was the tired smile of a man who made himself smile often, maybe to remind himself he was able to. The corners of his eyes crinkled pleasantly when he smiled – it was nice. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Where is it you’re from?”

“Gwaren.”

“Tell me about your vhenadahl,” he said.

Shani felt herself grin, surprised. “I didn’t know most Dalish knew about those!”

“I’ve visited a lot of alienages in Ferelden and Orlais, with vhenadahls and without,” Mahanon said. “But not Gwaren.”

“It’s beautiful,” Shani said. “It’s a cherry blossom tree. It has a great trunk wider than you and I together, and when it flowers, it’s like a shower of pink that carpets the whole of the alienage. We dye the girls’ clothes with it, and it’s such a beautiful colour, like rose-stained glass. I was so happy, when I turned twelve, and I could have one of the pink dresses – because you’re old enough not to get it filthy, then, you know?”

“Mmm,” Mahannon hummed. “That’s lovely.”

“Here, darling,” said Nana, pushing a mug to Shani, and Shani took it up, taking a sip.

“Did you have a vhenadahl, Nana?” asked Shani.

“It died,” Nana said. “I remember, because it was the night I married my old Ned. The Templars came for some young lad showing sparks of magic, and he cried so loudly, so desperately when they pulled him away from his mother, made the ground shake, he did.”

“He killed the tree?” Mahanon asked.

“No,” Nana murmured. “No, the Templars did that. Knocked him hard on the head, they did, cracked his skull too hard. He was dead before he got to the Circle, poor lad. One of the Templars was so angry with him for struggling he threw his axe hard into the wood. Bled sap the night through, and then it started to wither.”

The three of them sat in the quiet, sipping at their tea.

There was always a companionship in shared suffering, Shani supposed, although she wasn’t sure she liked it much.

“Are the Dalish moving on, soon?” Shani asked.

Mahanon nodded. “Yes, they’ll move through the Dales, toward Halamshiral. I’m surprised they’ve stayed this long.” They?

“Ah, lethallin, I was looking for you,” said Solas as he entered the room, and Shani glanced up at him. “Nana, Shani, good evening.”

“You’re looking _thin_,” Nana said, posing an accusing spoon at Solas, who spread his hands.

“Nana, I promise you, I eat every meal that is placed before me,” Solas said seriously.

“And how many do you let get placed before you?” Naha demanded. “Eh? Chasing about the castle, sleeping on shelves like a damned cat, avoiding your meals—”

Shani hid her laughter behind her hand as Solas made eye contact with Nana, picked up an apple from the shelf, and demonstratively took a bite. He made a face.

“That’s a cooking apple, you daft sod,” said Nana, without sympathy.

“Yes,” Solas said, wrinkling his nose and coughing slightly before he swallowed. He flicked his tongue, as if trying to get the taste off, and Shani heard Mahanon choke on his tea beside her, trying to hold back his laughter. “It’s quite sharp.”

“I remember the first time I ate one of those,” Mahanon said, placing his mug down. “I didn’t realize there were varieties of apple – I just thought there were _apples_, you know. I picked up one of those little green things, bit into it…” The rest of the words he spoke faded into the ether as he gesticulated, and Shani stared at his hand.

The Anchor was like a shard of bright, green glow cutting through his palm, pulsing slightly, and she stared at it, her mouth open, her tongue feeling dry. _They_, he called the Dalish; _Mahanon_, that was the Inquisitor’s name, but she never…

The Inquisitor noticed her staring, and he stopped abruptly, closing his hand into a fist.

Shani stood to her feet, looking down at the floor, and she saw from the corner of her gaze, the Inquisitor’s mouth open, close. She heard him sigh.

“Seeker Pentaghast was looking for you,” Solas said. “She’s out by the barracks.”

“I’ll go,” Mahanon said, sounding defeated. “Thank you, Nana, for the tea. It was good to meet you, Shani.”

“Yes, ser,” Shani said, her voice quavering only slightly. “Thank you, ser.”

The Inquisitor closed the door very quietly behind him.

“You should go to bed, dear,” Nana said. “You look tired. Why don’t you walk with Solas? Tell him to eat something.”

“Fenhedis, woman, I’ve eaten more than enough today!”

“Don’t you use that language with _me_, young man, you’re not so old that I can’t put you over my knee!”

“Are you sure of that, Nana?”

The challenge in Solas’ voice was playful, but there was a funny note to it that Shani couldn’t ignore, even as Nana grumbled, shaking out her hands.

“Out, both of you! Leave an old woman to her night’s peace.”

“Thank you for the tea, Nana,” Shani said, and Nana reached out, touching her cheek with a leathery palm.

“Don’t you worry about tonight, my girl,” she said quietly. “The Inquisitor’s a fine sort. He didn’t mean to frighten you. Just likes to have a sit-down where no one will goggle at him, that’s all.”

“Yes, Nana,” Shani said.

Solas walked beside her as they left the kitchens.

“What you called him,” Shani said. “Lethallin. What does it mean?”

“Friend,” Solas answered. “For a man. Lethallan, for a woman. Lethallen is the neutral. Literally it means, one whom I trust.”

“It must be nice, to have your own language,” Shani murmured. “That the humans don’t have.”

“It’s your language,” Solas said gently. “You have as much right to it as I, or Inquisitor Lavellan.”

“I’m not a scholar,” Shani said, hearing the bitterness in her voice and feeling embarrassed by it. “Or Dalish.”

“His clan is unusual, you know, in the extent that they know the elvish tongue, speaking it as they do amongst themselves. Most Dalish elves lack his clan’s casual command of the language. And as for being a scholar…” Solas trailed off, then gestured with his half-eaten apple. “It does not always garner as much wisdom as one might hope.”

Shani smiled.

“You don’t look humans in the eye,” Solas said.

“No,” Shani said. “Some of them treat it as a crime, if you look them in the eye. They say they want you to, but it’s just a trick. You know where you stand, with dwarves, or Qunari, or other elves. You can tell when they’re being greedy, or cruel – they’ll tell you, with their faces. Humans lie with theirs.”

Solas nodded his head, slowly, thoughtfully.

“Will he be very upset?” Shani asked. “The Inquisitor?”

“He’s hurt,” Solas said. “He has yet to accustom himself to the way people look at him, now, the deference and respect with which they treat him. It borders on fear or on reverence, and he dislikes to be the subject of either.”

“He said he visits alienages.”

“He does. He cares about other elves, Dalish or not.”

“Most Dalish wouldn’t set foot in an alienage. When I was very small… It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Solas said softly.

“If I tell you about my childhood,” Shani said, “you have to share a story from yours.”

“Now who plays a conversation like a chess game?”

“Me,” Shani said. “When someone else starts it.”

Solas took a bite of his apple, and Shani winced in sympathy at the way he squinted as he swallowed, visibly forcing it down.

“You don’t have to finish it,” Shani said.

“It has long been an attribute of mine that I finish what I start,” Solas said, chewing painfully slowly on the apple. “Whether that be a strength or a weakness.”

“You’re mad.”

“Perhaps. Please, tell me your story.”

“When I was very small, we came to Gwaren from another alienage,” Shani said. “I don’t remember which one. But outside of the city, our cart got turned over by bandits on the road, and I fell into a ditch. They were close enough to the city that people came out to help, but I had hurt myself and I was too frightened to cry out for help. I sat in the ditch and shivered, because I’d hurt my ankle, for a whole day, until a Dalish scout came through.

“Her name was Mitharil, and she picked me up, and she carried me into the city in her arms, and asked for directions to the alienage. My mother must have kissed her cheeks a dozen times apiece, and they wouldn’t let her go until she’d eaten a meal with them, to thank her, and she was so graceful. It was like we had a princess there – most of us had never spoken to a Dalish before. I begged her to stay forever, and she laughed and said she couldn’t, but she sang me a lullaby in elvish when my mother put me to bed, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.”

Perhaps he heard it in her voice, or saw it in her face.

It was with a gentle, knowing voice that he asked, “What happened to her?”

“She left early the next morning. The men in the market had never seen a Dalish up close either. Said she was pretty to look at, the hahren said, but he couldn’t get them to…” Shani swallowed. “They raped her. Slit her throat. And it was all because she brought a little girl back to her family. They left the hahren with a scar on his face, too, when he tried to fight them off.”

Solas was silent.

“I don’t like humans,” Shani said. “I don’t care if it makes me racist. They treat us like chattel, even the ones that mean to be kind. Just… _things_, to be used, or looked at, or enjoyed. I don’t want anybody to enjoy me. Enjoy my company, maybe, or my stories, but not _me_. I’m not an entertainment.”

It didn’t really tack on to what she’d just said, she knew. It didn’t make sense, exactly, but Solas didn’t point that out.

“When I was a child,” he said softly, “I walked away from my village. I was just coming into my magic, learning to use it, to feel it on the air around me. I climbed onto a lotus flower in a pond, and fell asleep on it – my first trip into the Fade. I dreamt of the wonder of creation, of blooming flowers and bright green shoots. That was what I woke to – in my sleep, my magic had encouraged the lotus to throw out green vines that all but covered the surface of the pond in verdant sweeps of colour, and there I was upon my cushion in the midst of it all, like a spider upon its web.”

“That sounds beautiful,” Shani said.

“Yes,” Solas agreed. “But when I tried to step from the lotus and return to the shore, I fell between the tangled vines, and they trapped me in the water, knotting about my arms, my legs, as I tried to struggle free. I might have died there, drowned there, had a kind woman not drawn me free. There is danger in beauty, in creation, in magic. There is danger in everything. But kindness, it… connects us. It is a bond forged. It is worth whatever cost might come of it.”

Shani watched as he ate the last bite of the apple, spitting the seeds into his palm. Even as she watched, they sprouted green, the shoots spreading outward, intertwining, their leaves widening.

“In a forest,” Solas said softly, “trees must grow side by side. Their roots tangle with one another, but do not choke their neighbours; ivy grows upon trees, but not so much as to sap away all their life; they coexist, side-by-side, twine about each other. In doing so, a forest becomes far stronger, insurmountable, than a tree that grows on its own: all can grow without being choked, whilst finding safety and comfort in the shelter of others. So is the case – so should be the case – for the people.”

“What people?”

There was only a moment’s hesitation before Solas said, “Any people.”

“All the servants like you,” Shani said. “They say you’re kind.”

“I am irritable and particular in my ways,” Solas said. “Often do I bury myself in my work and forget my manners; I walk the Fade for days on end, I often sleep outside my own bed. Many in Skyhold find me infuriating.”

“Yes,” Shani agreed. “But the servants like you, too. Infuriating or not.”

“Sleep,” Solas murmured.

“Yes,” Shani said. “Lethallin.”

Solas _smiled_, and the warmth that showed in his face was a delight.

“Lethallan,” he said, bowing his head slightly, and as he stepped down the corridor, Shani saw the green shoots grow more quickly in his palm, an echo of the mark the Inquisitor carried on his own.


	3. Chapter 3

“He tried to cry out, when he died, but all that came out was a gurgle, grizzly, ghastly noise,” said a voice in Shani’s ear, and Shani stumbled as she jumped away, the mop handle falling to the floor with a clatter. Her shoulders hit the wall, and she stared at the young man in front of her, his head bowed and hidden beneath a broad-brimmed hat, that she couldn’t see his face. “He choked on his blood, but you couldn’t have eased his pain. You were as powerless as he was.”

Shani pressed her shoulders further back against the wall, trying to lean away, and she heard him sigh from beneath the hat.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was the wrong thing to say. I just want to heal the hurt, but it’s too far away… None of the humans here will hurt you, you know. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t. You’re safe in Skyhold, safe and sound, like they always were, here, where the stone holds back the sky.”

“Who’s they?”

“The elves.”

“Who _are_ you?”

“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head and taking a step back. “I don’t matter, _you_ do. You weren’t responsible for Hahren Renat, Shani, it wasn’t…”

He sighed. Shani stared at him, stared, but then he disappeared, dematerialising, and she stared at the space he’d left. As soon as he disappeared, the colours she remembered seem to fizzle out of her memory, and she couldn’t really remember him at all except the hat, and she remembered being—

What was it he’d said?

It had made her feel uncomfortable, she remembered, she’d felt uncertain and unhappy, caught off-guard, but she couldn’t quite pull on the threads, couldn’t… She hated the sensation, the gap in her memory, and she reached for the mop.

What had she been thinking about?

She couldn’t remember that, either.

\--

“Do you think you’ll ever be the same as you were before?” Ghianna asked that night, as she combed Shani’s hair out. She was working at it with a fine-toothed comb that Ambassador Montilyet had given her when she got a new one from her sister, and it was a beautiful thing, it really was. Ghianna liked to work on other people’s hair. She was good at it, had always been good at it – she knew dozens of different sorts of braids, and it was wonderful, sometimes, to watch her work on someone else’s hair, but Shani enjoyed feeling her gentle fingers, the care she put into it. It was like she worked her own little magic on tangles, seeming never to tug at knots at all.

“I don’t think any of us will ever be the same as we were before,” Shani said quietly. “The Dalish say that before Arlathan fell, all the elves were unchanging, for hundreds and hundreds of years, for millennia, and that they were just the same. But they didn’t feel time like we do. I don’t think you can stay unchanging when time passes you by, let alone anything else.”

“Even when we were little, you talked like this,” Ghianna murmured, gently separating Shani’s hair into a few different sections for an Orlesian braid. “Sometimes I felt like you were an elder even when we were just fourteen.”

Shani laughed.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

“No, it’s alright,” Ghianna said. “It’s comforting, that that’s the same. It’s not that I don’t like you anymore, I just… I want to know you’re happy. That you’re alright.”

“I’m alright,” Shani promised her. “Really. How are you?”

“Alright,” Ghianna murmured, and Shani felt her shrug her shoulders. “Some of the nobles were upset, yesterday, when they realized their housemaid was an elf. They complained, and then complained more when they met Renella. Called me a knife ear.”

“If the shemlen prefer a dirty room, that’s on their heads,” Shani murmured, gently patting Ghianna’s knee, and Ghianna sighed softly.

“Yeah,” she said. She sounded tired. “I suppose. I just wish, sometimes…”

“Yes,” Shani murmured. “Me too.”

\--

It was later that evening that she saw Solas up on the ramparts, and he stopped to look at her, smiling. She looked up at his face, and then she said, “Ghianna braided it for me. I’d offer to ask her to do yours too, but…”

Solas laughed, and he put his hands behind his back, walking beside her as they made their way toward Commander Rutherford’s office. She held the bag with the Commander’s new sheets in her hands, and Solas glanced down at it.

“He really makes his own bed?”

“He says he finds it calming,” Shani murmured, her lips twitching. “The other servants say they don’t think they do it with the exactitude he’s used to. Chantry boys are very strict about the way they make their beds, Renella says.”

“Is that what you think?”

“No.”

“But you won’t tell me what you _do_ think.”

“I’m sure it’s none of my business, lethallin,” Shani said softly. “And with respect, I don’t believe it’s yours either.”

She didn’t know the specifics. She knew that Commander Rutherford was ill often, and she knew that he always put his dirty sheets very neatly in one pile, often jumping to his feet to put them into the cloth bag for the laundry rather than letting anybody else touch them. They were often damp with sweat, even then. Some nights, he brought them to the laundry himself, and came to get new sheets – those were the weeks where the Commander had dark circles under his eyes and was pale as bone as he moved one way or the other.

It must be very embarrassing, to have an illness that made you wet your sheets, especially when the Commander was so uncertain of some people, so quiet and retiring. He was always very polite, very kind, to Shani – and importantly, he never pressed her to speak, or meet his gaze, like some people did.

There was a respect in that that many of the nobles in Skyhold didn’t have.

Solas looked Shani in the eyes. She could see that he knew about Cullen, if not as much as she did, that he knew the core.

“Sometimes,” Solas said softly, “I see the echo of his nightmares in the Fade about his tower. There is only so much I can do to ameliorate the matter.”

“It’s kind of you to try.”

“No matter my disagreements with the Commander,” Solas said softly, “the ardour of his predicament is no fault of his own. In Tevinter, they use only chains to tether their slaves, but in Ferelden, Orlais, the Free Marches, the Chantry has a dozen techniques for every man they would make chattel.”

“In Ferelden, during the Blight, they kidnapped elves from different alienages, sold them to slavers who brought them to Tevinter. The Hero of Ferelden stopped them, you know. She was Dalish.”

“Lyna Mahariel,” Solas said, nodding his head. “Our intrepid spymaster has spoken well of her, as has the Commander.”

“It’s a nice night,” Shani murmured, looking up at the skies. They were beginning to darken to purple, now, to give way to the blanket of black and stars that would come later on. The skies above the fortress were always clearer than any down the mountain, unless there were rainclouds in the way.

“It will rain tonight,” Solas said. “Hard and heavy, it will rain.”

“There’re no clouds in the sky.”

“May I touch your hand?” Solas asked. “I’ll show you.”

Shani hesitated, adjusting her grip on the cloth bag in her hands, but there was nothing solicitous or salacious in his expression, no threat that he might heighten the interaction, and she gave a small nod of her head. He didn’t even use his fingertips to touch her: he brushed the back of his hand against hers, and she felt it on the air.

It was a sort of energy that touched the back of her teeth, settling on her skin, a liquid sweetness on the air – it felt lighter than it had before Solas touched her, and when she looked at the sky—

“Oh,” she said breathlessly.

She could _see_ it, except that she couldn’t she didn’t feel that she was using her eyes, not as she did to see things, or colour, and yet she didn’t know how else to describe it. She could see the moving pressure on the air, could see wind, or rhythm, like there was a layer of oil paint on top of the sky itself, and she was seeing both the forward and the back in one gaze.

“Do you see?” Solas asked.

“Is that how you see everything?” Shani asked.

“No,” Solas murmured, pulling his hand away, and the second layer was stripped away, leaving only the bare sky. “Not everything.”

“I didn’t know mages saw things like that.”

“Not mages,” Solas said. “Elves. Ask young Sera, and though her every descriptor will no doubt be strange, she will tell you she sees something similar.”

Shani thought of the way Sera had once spat at Eri when she’d asked, earnestly, in the way any young girl might, if it was difficult to fletch arrows, if she did a special Dalish technique. _Just because you look at me and think I’m an elf, right, don’t mean I want to speak to any of you lot. Leave off, yeah? _

She was very kind, so Shani had heard, with the human or dwarf servants. It was only elves she took such issue with. “I don’t speak with Mistress Sera,” Shani said, more sharply than she meant to, and Solas’ expression…

“My apologies, lethallan,” Solas said softly. “I know Sera can be cutting, where other elves are concerned. I forget that my position affords me some small respect, no matter how meagre it might be.”

He knocked on the door to Commander Rutherford’s office, and he called, “Come in.”

As Solas spoke with the Commander, Shani climbed the ladder to the Commander’s bed and gently laid the clean sheets on the trunk at the end of his bed, tilting the dirty sheets into the back. They were mostly dry, which was good, and Shani pulled the cloth bag shut, descending the ladder.

“Thank you, Shani,” the Commander said. “Would you be willing to run a message for me as you go?”

Most servants wouldn’t be trusted with running messages. There were dedicated runners, this she knew, but he’d have to ring a bell and wait for one of them to come up to him, but they were dedicated in order to track the movement of intelligence about Skyhold. For whatever reason, Shani was trusted in a way some other servants weren’t.

She didn’t ever mention it, unless Renella asked her directly. It was better that way. And in any case, even Commander Cullen knew not to send her to _everyone_ – there were some nobles, or even ranking officers amongst the Templars, who would spit to see a serving girl trusted with messages, especially an elf, and would assume them stolen. Rutherford could shout at thm for their stupidity, but he could not bleed them of that prejudice, no matter how he seemed to try.

“Yes, Commander,” Shani said, taking a step toward the desk, but she didn’t raise her eyes to meet the Commander’s gaze, and she looked at his rugged hand as she took the envelope from him. “To Ambassador Montilyet, ser?”

“Please,” he said. “But if you’d go to the barracks and ask Seeker Pentaghast to come up to me at the earliest convenience, as well? My apologies for keeping you from your work.”

“My work is in the service of Skyhold, Commander,” Shani said. “It’s no trouble.”

She heard him say, just before she closed the door behind her, “She’s an honourable woman. It’s a waste, having her as a servant when she’d be such an asset as a field scout.”

“You cannot draft her, Commander,” Solas said.

“Yes, I know,” Rutherford said ruefully, with a soft chuckle. “I tried.”

She wouldn’t make a good field scout. Even if she was comfortable with weapons in her hands, which she wasn’t, she wouldn’t want to be stuck out in the field, brushing shoulders with all the humans that were scouts as well, out where the danger was, seeing more people die, killing some of them.

She liked maps. She liked making notes, and reading. She liked intelligence, she supposed, but she didn’t want to leave Ghianna, didn’t want to be out in the field, didn’t want to do all that when she could be here, instead.

Perhaps it would be flattering, if she was interested in that sort of thing. It was pleasant, in some distant way, that he should respect her enough to want her in his employ.

Not pleasant enough to pursue it.

\--

“Shani?”

“Master Tethras?” Shani asked, looking up from folding the spare blankets that he kept on his shelves, for when people fell asleep in his quarters. There was a young man who did that a lot – his name was Cole, she thought – and then there were other people, friends of his. Master Tethras had a great many friends.

“Can I read you this sentence, and you tell me if it makes a lick of sense? I must have written it out six times already.”

“Yes, ser,” Shani said.

“The mist came down from the Sundermount, thick and white as cloud, pooling foggily on the horizon.”

“Foggily,” Shani repeated dryly, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Master Tethras said, sighing. “Yeah, it’s not working, is it?”

“Thick and white, pooling like cloud on the horizon?” she suggested, even as she knew it wouldn’t work.

Master Tethras sighed, rubbing at his head. “I’m only doing this shit for the Seeker, you know. No one else reads this crap.”

“I’m sure she’ll be very grateful,” Shani said softly. “The Seeker reads your books voraciously.”

“Yeah,” Master Tethras murmured, rubbing at his eyes. Shani watched him for a long moment, folding up the last of the blankets and holding it in her arms.

“Master Tethras?” she asked.

“Mm?”

“It’s past two bells, ser,” Shani said softly. “Perhaps the words will come easier if you sleep.”

“You’re a wise woman, Shani,” Tethras said. “Wiser than me.”

But he nodded, blotting his paper and gently setting his quill aside. It was nice, watching Master Tethras look after his pens and his ink bottles – there was a satisfaction in watching any skilled craftsman work with his tools, whether it was watching an archer fletch their arrows, or one of the blacksmiths, or seeing a warrior polish their armour, but Master Tethras? There was a gentility in the way he cultivated his quills.

She wished she could have a graceful hand like he did. His handwriting was beautiful.

“Ah,” Tethras said. “Cole. You gonna sleep on the couch?”

“It’s going to rain,” said the boy in the doorway, and Shani stared at him, at his broadrimmed hat. She recognised the hat, she remembered… She didn’t remember anything. But she remembered the hat. “I want to sit in it.”

“Okay,” Master Tethras said, “but remember to dry off before you lie down to sleep, okay? It’s important you don’t like down anywhere while you’re still wet. Go to Solas or Bull if they’re awake.”

“I don’t mind it,” Cole said. “The wet weaves around me, the water wishing to make me a well.”

“Yeah, but you’ll be cold. You’ll shiver, and it’ll make you sick. You don’t want the flu, do you?”

“No,” Cole murmured. “What about Krem?”

“What about him?”

“Do you think he would like to get wet?”

Shani looked at Tethras’ face, his eyes wide, his lips pressed together, like he was trying to stop himself from saying something. “Go ask him, kid, but… Don’t say it like that. Ask if he wants to come sit in the rain with you. Maybe hold hands.”

“Oh,” Cole said softly, sounding blissful. “He has very nice hands.”

“Yeah,” Tethras said. “You tell him that.”

Instead of fizzling out of sight, like Shani remembered him doing before, he actually turned on his heel and walked down the corridor, but his footsteps didn’t make a sound.

“I remember him,” Shani said, “except that I don’t.”

“He’s trying to get out of the habit of doing that,” Tethras said softly.

“He’s a mage?”

“Nah,” Tethras said, reaching out for the blanket in Shani’s arms, and Shani handed it down to him. “He’s just working through some things. Thanks, Shani. You still working?”

“No, this was my last room,” Shani said. “I left you until last because I knew you’d still be awake.”

“You got me,” Master Tethras murmured, giving her a smile, and he put the blanket under one arm. “You won’t let me tip you, will you?”

“I don’t need it, Master Tethras.”

“You ever need anything, you ask me,” Tethras said. “You know that, right?”

“Yes, ser. Thank you.”

“G’night, Shani,” Tethras murmured, and Shani nodded to him as she left the room. Outside, as she walked through the basement corridors – Tethras insisted it was just a matter of stereotyping that they put him down here, but that he didn’t mind it ‘cause it was easier to sleep during the day when he needed to – she heard the skies thunder, and then open. Once she was in the main hall, which still had a few nobles milling about despite the lateness of the hour, she moved toward the entrance hall.

The rain was coming down heavily, pounding against the grassy ground as if it was trying to make it bruise, and she saw the boy with the broad hat, his arms wrapped around the neck of one of the Iron Bull’s soldiers. His name was Krem, and he was Tevinter. He was handsome (although Shani could barely be reminded of this, as hidden as he was under Cole’s huge hat), not quite as big and broad as some of the other warriors but just as deadly. His hands were on Cole’s waist, and she could hear them laughing as they danced in the rain, like they were waltzing to music she couldn’t hear.

Even as she watched, Krem caught him under the thighs and lifted him clean off the ground, and the boy laughed joyfully like he’d never laughed before, his hat tumbling onto the muddied ground, and the rain came down on both their heads as he pressed their noses together, laughing into each other’s mouths, but not kissing.

The rain flattened Cole’s hair against his head – it was the white-blond of bleached straw, and he had an emaciated look about him, his eyes deeply shadowed. Shani felt herself smile, just slightly, seeing the two of them laugh at just the pleasure of the rain in the middle of the night.

“You see?” said Solas as he came up behind her.

“It’s raining very hard,” Shani assented. “I don’t want to walk across the yard.”

“Frightened of getting your clothes wet?”

“Not frightened,” Shani said, shrugging her shoulders. “I just want to go directly to bed, and I hate to sleep with my hair wet.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Solas offered.

“Wh—”

Solas put out his palm, and Shani watched the blue glow widen in it, creating a bowl that he settled above their heads, a few feet wide, making water rush off the edge, as it did off the Skyhold roofing tiles.

She reached up, touching her fingers to it. It felt like the oil cloth they used for tarpaulin, but when it was pulled taut by rope – it yielded, but only by the slightest bit, and when she looked at Solas, she saw him smiling at her.

“You smile at me a great deal,” she said.

“You show an inquisitiveness that I see in few others,” Solas said. “It brings me joy.”

“If you ever tried to touch me, I would break your fingers,” Shani said quietly, solemnly. She did not know why she felt compelled to say it, when Solas had never made even the smallest threat in that direction, but Solas showed no offence, merely giving a nod of his head.

“Yes,” Solas murmured. “I know. I would not touch you if you did not wish it. And with that said, I am not…” Solas trailed off, and he looked to Cole and Krem, who were spinning on Krem’s feet, Cole wrapped about him as a wild cat wraps about a tree. “I wouldn’t have time for such dalliances, even if they drew my interest. I am content in our friendship, so long as you feel the same.”

“I do,” Shani said. “But I will have to take your arm. Your stride is a different rhythm to mine.”

“Very well,” Solas said, and offered it.

They walked across the way together, Shani’s hand curled about Solas’ arm, which was more muscular than she expected. He and the Tevinter, Pavus, were built in a way that most of the Circle Mages weren’t – as much as Nana complained that Solas was thin, he was slim and athletically muscled, and Pavus had even more tightly packed muscle on his body. They looked _healthy_, in a way most of the Circle Mages didn’t, no matter that they shared a place to live, now, and ate much of the same food.

“He did something to my memories,” Shani said. “The funny boy.”

“Cole?”

“Yes.”

“He’s doing it less than he used to,” Solas murmured.

“Is he human?”

“No,” Solas said. “He’s a spirit of compassion, made flesh.”

“I didn’t know they could do that,” Shani said. “But it sounds different to an abomination.”

“He is learning to be more human,” Solas said quietly. “I… I counselled against his choice, but it was his to make. He seeks only to be kind to others, to repair what ills he might find amongst others. Do you recall what it was he spoke to you about?”

“No,” Shani said. “I only remembered his hat. And that he made me feel… uncomfortable.”

“I’ll speak with him,” Solas said softly.

He walked her to the door of the servants’ quarters, leaning slightly under the doorway so that the barrier would shield her of the last of the rain, but he did not cross the threshold. Shani hesitated, crossing her arms over her chest to avoid the chill, and said, “I heard what Commander Cullen said to you, earlier.”

“Your choices are your own,” Solas said. “He respects that, he will not try to convince you any further.”

“I know,” Shani said. “There are few Templars that share his philosophy.”

“What is it you wish to do, when Corypheus is defeated?” Solas asked quietly, leaning back from the doorway, away from the boundary there. “Will you remain with the Inquisition, here at Skyhold?”

“I expect so,” Shani said. “I would not find better treatment elsewhere.”

“You don’t ever tire of being a servant?”

When Solas saw her expression, he spread his hands at his shoulders. “Peace. I meant not to express disapproval – merely curiosity. You speak with the wisdom of a hahren; you are cool, collected, well-trusted; others take well to your instruction. You could do something different, if you chose.”

“I could be more, you mean?”

“No. You will be what you are. The duties you perform, the work you do, neither heightens nor lowers that which you are. You deserve to command respect, regardless.”

“I find myself wondering, at times, what it was like before the fall of Arlathan,” Shani said quietly. “Sometimes I dream about…”

“Yes?” Solas asked, something in his face that she couldn’t quite make out, something breathless.

“It’s foolish.”

“Then let us be fools together. Isn’t that what friends are?”

“Skies the colour of gold,” Shani said softly. “And there’s a cherry blossom tree, like there is at the alienage in Gwaren, but it’s gigantic, and it hosts a hundred houses made of crystal, and platforms run between the trees. They shimmer in the dawn light, and they reflect the stars when night comes.”

Solas stared at her, his lips parted, inhaling softly. “Before the fall—” He said, and then he inhaled, and said, “I have seen similar things in the Fade. It is incredible, what comes to us in dreams, which flow from whence the Fade comes.”

“Solas,” Shani said quietly.

“Shani?”

“Your eyes are watering.” She offered him the clean handkerchief from her pocket, and he took a step back, shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “Thank you, lethallan. You are… The elves at Skyhold, I—” He trailed off, sighing, his eyes closing for a moment, and then he looked at her, his gaze full of pain, and she wondered once more where he’d come from, what he’d seen, before he began to walk thee Fade.

“You care,” Shani said. “You don’t have to explain. Good night, lethallin.”

“Sleep well,” Solas murmured, giving a nod of his head, and he let the barrier drop as he moved away from the door: the rain fell heavy on his shoulders and soaked into his clothes, running over the skin of his head, and if he noticed, he did not show it at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can!


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